


Hunger [Alles is hin, Augustin]

by hornblowerfic_archivist



Category: Hornblower (TV), Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Gen, Set within the time frame of 'Flying Colours', Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-20
Updated: 2004-09-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 12:30:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6079416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hornblowerfic_archivist/pseuds/hornblowerfic_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hornblower as seen in the eyes of his biggest enemy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunger [Alles is hin, Augustin]

**Author's Note:**

> recently i've developed a dangerous liking of song!fics. this is one such, of sorts. details and descriptions have been heavily borrowed from Stendhal's 'Life of Napoleon'.
> 
> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Hornblowerfic.com](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hornblowerfic.com). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in January 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [Hornblowerfic.com collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hornblowerfic/profile).

"Ach du lieber Augustin," she sang, and her crystalline hands thrust upwards to form a gracious arch over her head. "Augustin, Augustin."

She never tired to dance for him, ever since he had brought her as a gift - a prize - from the vanquished Rhine. The lucrative river region had yielded him a solid monetary profit as well as this figurine of a lady whose little perfect body was always ready for his eyes and whose metallic voice never asked him questions.

Sometimes he wished he could marry her; but she would have borne him no son, and so was forever destined to stay the Rhinestone Empress of his heart while Empress Innocence, so contrastingly imperfect in her flesh and blood, took care of his progeny.

He looked up from the table that, besides the music box, was heavily littered with reports and newspapers. The doors to his chamber weren't closed; they never were. He could see the corridors lined with guards, bright spots of uniforms and shining armour fading into darkness out of his sight.

"Money's gone, girlfriend's gone, I just can't win, Augustin!"

It was probable that at this very moment while he was sitting there alone, somewhere in the depths of the palace his courtiers gathered for yet another of those 'intimate' evenings, determined to fulfil his orders and play the game of pretence at a sparkling court life despite stifled yawns and pitiful attempts at witticisms. He might yet choose to join them - and turn whatever merriment they had managed to conjure into obligatory work. He didn't know how to be merry or amused; he only knew, very seldom, how to be ecstatic.

He was quite near that only a short time ago when the fresh issue of the 'Moniteur' arrived and he gulped the news like a feverish man drinks cool water. Reports from Iberia; successes and failures, the latter disappointingly predominant recently. Small pieces of a pyramid he called his Empire that stood firm only when he was there to hold each new stone in place. He wished he could be everywhere at once; he wished he could duplicate himself a dozen times. He couldn't risk waiting till his offspring grew up, and he couldn't be sure they would be his copy enough to replace him. No, he wished for a dozen of golems, rock-solid as his crystal dancer, fuelled by unfailing mechanism and with a quarter of an acre of fine brains like his; them, he would trust.

Stone against wood and water. Only thus he would conquer his only obdurate enemy on sea that despite the complete blockade, despite the disloyalty and recreancy of its allies still ruled the waves. This enemy hid behind the wooden walls of their ships; they harboured illogical and foolhardy optimism in their hearts of oak. And he was powerless against them, for while many a time he had contemplated a plan of an invasion that would end this stand-off once and for all, he had to abandon it realizing that his fleet didn't have any of those famed talents the Revolution had spawned in his land forces.

But like any true son of France, he was vain, sometimes even boyishly so. He was glad to hear of every new successful swoop his captains managed to effect on the British navy. It often required an English ship recklessly falling behind the main forces and three or four French ships ambushing it like mean vultures to gain a tough victory, but he didn't care if the conditions were dishonest as long as his ships won. It was four against one near Rosas, the report told him, and the losses were heavy even with such alignment, but that didn't matter: the British ship had surrendered.

He summoned his secretary to dictate urgent orders at once. He didn't care that it was middle of the night already: he wasn't asleep, and that was enough. He took pride in his ability to drive his officers to the point of exhaustion, and any outward sign of that, or of even illness, he took for the best proof of their loyalty to him. He often said that was how it was supposed to be: in four years at the maximum, his ministers were too rundown to take a piss unaided.

"Even that rich town Wien broke is like Augustin."

He smiled to the dancer's voice, clear like a silver bell ringing, and shook his head. No, he was far from broke: in a few days' time he would have the captain of the surrendered ship here. No need to look up the name in the report: he had long ago memorised it, regretting that Nelson, contrary to him, apparently had as near a double as Fate's distribution of naval talents allowed. The public opinion would be thirsty for the Englishman's blood even though this Horatio wasn't Nelson. But when did the Emperor ever care about public opinion?

It had taken him several days to make up his mind about the captive's destiny. They wanted a public execution - they would have none, at least, not at once. He wished he could lay the English captain's brain open before his naval officers, take them by their necks like puppies and rub their noses into it. See how the naval warfare is done properly. Understand. Learn.

But he doubted they would be able to, even with their lives at stake.

***

Every day he traced the convoyed prisoner's route on the map. Earlier, he had had the police portraitist draw a sketch of the notorious British: there had been enough of eyewitness reports from the scouts among fishermen and the survivors on the assaulted French ships to give reliable testimony. The man seemed to be composed of cumbersome, melancholic features and an abundance of dark curls that crowned a tall and lean figure that bore the captain's coat with an unease and self-consciousness no years of practice seemed able to eliminate.

With time, the portrait had branded itself into his retina: he didn't need to look at it to visualize in what ways the age might have taken its toll on the man. The curls might have become duller and recessing; the eyes must have become surrounded by a network of minute wrinkles - a result of always looking to windward even in the harshest gale and a very effectual component for a most contemptuous scowl. But those eyes couldn't have lost the sparkle of mischief the many witnesses - and victims thereof - reported as being a sure sign a plan was being hatched within that brain.

Oh, how he wanted to crash himself into those features, to break through the appearance and conquer all that was inside! To consume and digest, and to make it all his. He wished to spread the man open helplessly before him with his hungry fingers and teeth, and dig, and devour, and drink up every bit to the very marrow.

He had no doubts in his abilities to do so. He didn't maintain high esteem about himself as a charmer, but he knew pretty well, from frequent experience, that he could be irresistible. He might not be liked; he wasn't naive to believe the enemy, who shuddered at the very mention of the tyrant's name and the taint of the Revolution's anarchy forever associated with it, could be converted into his faith and remain sane. But at his disposal he had a rich arsenal of passion, and conviction, and an overwhelming scope of daring imagination that couldn't leave anybody indifferent. If captain Hornblower hated him, hatred it would be, but he wanted it to be passionate and personal and would give his hand to have it filled with solemn respect.

He still was thinking about the means to achieve that when a new report came telling him of the prisoners' escape. Intrepid and hare-brained it was, and for a moment he forgot about the officer who had brought the news cowering in front of him because his mind was too engrossed in visualizing that bold flight through the hostile land under sleet and drizzle. He was sure it was a flight into nowhere, guided by no reasonable hope, and yet it felt ambiguous.

"Coat is gone, staff is gone, Augustin's on his bum," remarked the rhinestone figurine as the mechanism of the music box span her round in endless circles, and he winked at her. For once he and his ideal crystalline spouse were about to disagree.

***

Three British prisoners of war were loose in his country and it unnerved him, but not for the reasons his officers assumed. He didn't fear assassination or espionage, although he had seen how England never missed her chances in both. He still remembered Wright too well to know that as soon as he left his back unguarded the British hand would take all pains to stretch out and stab him.

And yet he felt sure, almost instinctively, that if it was captain Hornblower's hand holding the knife this time, it would never come down for the final thrust. It wasn't that he didn't believe his escaped prisoner capable of killing. Of killing - yes, but not of murder. Committing murder is a spontaneous action: left to battle face to face, he knew they would be gazing into the faces of each other long enough for Hornblower to forget what he might have wanted to reach the Emperor for.

He almost wished that slender, delicate hand to be near him, even with the knife clasped in it. It would be a fit challenge to make it swerve, to make it drop. He often liked to say that he was ready to kiss a man's arse if he needed him; this time, he was ready to do it in a literal sense if required.

But he knew that the British captain wouldn't be foolhardy enough to risk anything like coming near Paris for a vague chance to finish off the tyrant in a feat of single-handed heroism. Like any Englishman, Hornblower had to be cold, prudent, and practical in anything that concerned survival.

This thought should have made the Emperor feel safe, but instead he felt neglected.

***

He refused to believe that all search for the run-away prisoners had been futile. Day after day he listened to the reports that stupidly insisted that to find the missing captives was impossible. He reminded his officers that the word 'impossible' wasn't in his dictionary; they only nodded and saluted in obedience, and left to gossip about how misused the armed forces were when following the Emperor's whimsical persistence.

There was only one way his clever ministers and courtiers could think of to appease him in his feverish hunger for news, and they didn't hesitate to follow it. He read the last dispatch that proclaimed the British prisoners drowned while attempting an escape from the pursuing party.

Dead. He crumpled the paper in his fist. He could almost see the sparkle in Hornblower's eyes at such a simple and elegant solution

"Now all the corpses rest, that is the rest," the dancer sang to him in the clear wintry morning.

He sprang up to his feet with a roar and smashed the music box on the floor.

***  
End.


End file.
